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Comment by jgarzik | Hacker News Reader

Most people really, really do not understand the large amount of military traffic on Telegram, and the consequence of that during wartime... and how valuable that is to multiple nation-states around the world.

Strategic comms, soldier command and control, battlefield drone command and control, intel asset management.

Armchair analysts need to put on their big-boy military pants.

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Are people actually running drones via Telegram channels?

Not that I’d be surprised. Very postmodern! But it just seems like HTTP(S) with extra steps.

Telegram bots do (what is effectively) simple firewall/LAN exfiltration over https.

So you can host a bot server even if no ports are open.

russians do https://youchu.be/watch?v=mwtbTuLZXWw

Subtitles read to me like they coordinate operations on those chat apps rather than that makeshift guided missiles are running Android. Ukrainian Army is reportedly using Discord for the same purpose.

1: https://old.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/126n9mp/picture...

Additionally, there also is a large amount military blogger traffic from both Russian and Ukrainian sides.

Telegram channels are quoted all over the place, even in serious press like Reuters.

France could have demanded extradition for "lack of moderation" from the UAE ages ago. Now Durov enters France voluntarily and gets arrested after allegedly trying to meet with Putin.

Witness protection program? Silly mistake?

Isn't that the military's fault?

Lots of military forces are growing dependence on these consumer chat apps from grassroots levels going up. The only saving grace is that preferred apps vary. Transition to self-hosted or at least majority nationally owned apps is happening across nations at most at geologic velocities.

most software developers let alone military contractors can't build proper chat app. Telegram UI and UX is top notch.

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